Mbeki Fights to Sell His Vision to Wary African Leaders

Thabo Mbeki has made hard compromises to keep his ambitious recovery plan for Africa on the international agenda.

Days after Robert Mugabe stole Zimbabwe's election, Tony Blair warned the South African president that continued prevarication over Zimbabwe would cost him crucial support for the New Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad).

A few weeks later, a raucous press conference following a meeting with the Canadian prime minister, Jean Chrétien, brought home to Mr Mbeki just how much his strange views on Aids - questioning the link between HIV and Aids - were tainting western perceptions of his vision of an African renaissance.

Mr Chrétien, in Pretoria to talk about this week's G8 summit, privately warned Mr Mbeki that his Aids policies were undermining support for Nepad. Canadian journalists reinforced the point as they shunned Mr Mbeki's attempts to speak about the G8 meeting and flayed him with questions on his HIV policies.

Mr Mbeki reluctantly made limited concessions on both Zimbabwe and Aids: he was forced to agree to suspend Zimbabwe from the Common wealth, and he lifted objections to his government pursuing a more orthodox approach to Aids. He made the compromises knowing Nepad's fate is linked far more to his own credibility than to the credibility of the other African leaders behind the plan-Nigeria's Olusegun Obasanjo or Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal.

However, South Africa's leader is struggling to sell Nepad not just to the G8, but to the rest of his continent too.

Earlier this month, Mr Mbeki bluntly stated that Africa is primarily looking for money from the west. "The fact of the matter is that these countries have large volumes of capital that we need for the renaissance of our continent," he said. Africa is also pressing for debt reduction and greater access to western markets.

But there is a deal. Central to Nepad is a commitment by African countries to hold each other to a higher standard of governance than the continent has generally known over recent decades. The "peer review mechanism" was to have been in place by mid-June but South Africa is still battling to get consensus on "general principles".

Earlier this month, South Africa's finance minister, Trevor Manuel, acknowledged that Pretoria is having difficulty selling the mechanism to those African leaders who show little respect for decent government and fair elections, and to those who view Nepad as hardly more than an extension of International Monetary Fund dictates.

"It is a hard issue. It entails giving up bits of sovereignty. It is particularly difficult for those countries that fought hard struggles against colonial powers," he said. "The more of these hard issues that we put on the table the easier it is for us to deal with them. But, there is no doubt that it is going to be difficult."

The most outspoken critic has been South Africa's main rival for leadership in Africa, Muammar Gadafy. Mr Mbeki may have the credibility in the west, but Col Gadafy has the money - he has helped bankroll Mr Mugabe - and he's not going to embarrass some of Africa's more authoritarian leaders by bringing up the issue of democracy.

Mr Mbeki flew to Libya earlier this month to try to ensure that Col Gadafy did not rock the boat ahead of the G8 meeting. The Libyan leader responded by calling Nepad an attempt by the west to recolonise Africa. "It is quite hard and quite difficult for an African man to believe that he will be treated on an equal footing by the colonisers and racists. I don't believe they have changed their racist mentality," he said.

"If there are common benefits, we are ready. But we will not be tricked easily. Africa is a giant which has woken up and broken its shackles... The time has passed for creating stooges."

The Congress of South African Trade Unions has also questioned Nepad, saying that Mr Mbeki has gone to great lengths to win the support of big business but has failed to consult many other interested parties. Its general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi, called the strategies "vague" and said Nepad does not protect demo cracy. "People have to adhere to what has been agreed upon, but what happens if they do not?" he asked.

That is a central question, particularly in the light of South Africa's prevarication over Zimbabwe. Pretoria has argued that sanctions against Mr Mugabe's government would harm poor Zimbabweans. But that would apply to any African nation, and it is still unclear what alternative mechanisms will be used to punish those governments that do not adhere to their commitments under Nepad.